


Death, O Death

by galaxialsystem



Category: Original Work
Genre: Creepypasta, I had to write this for class, Slenderman - Freeform, i'm working on a second chapter, it gets more intense, sort of???
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27479236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxialsystem/pseuds/galaxialsystem
Summary: Matia Schauer is a skeptic in all things paranormal but a believer in all things dares. She'll take up any dare given to her. Which is how she got here, in the middle of the night, with her friends, outside of the Black Forest in Freiburg, Germany, vastly underprepared to hunt down the Großman.
Kudos: 1





	Death, O Death

The sound of a car idling mixed with the sounds of the midnight air, the car’s radio softly spitting out music from a random station. Leaning back in her seat, Matia lifted her glasses to rub at her eyes, letting the chunky black frames rest on top of her green hair. Letting out a sigh, she couldn’t help but be thankful for the energy drink sitting precariously on her lap. Reaching behind her to pull her hair into a small ponytail, she looked around the car at each of her friends, Archer and Byron in the front with Nora sitting to her right.

“This has got to be the worst decision I’ve ever made in my entire life,” she said, lowering her hands back to her energy drink and twisting the lid off to take a sip. “I just want you all to know that.”

Reaching over to turn the volume even lower, Archer turned around from his position in the driver’s seat to smile at Matia. “Oh, come on, this is nothing compared to when you dated John What’s-his-face last year.”

“Yeah,” Nora piped up, unbuckling and turning to prop her feet up on the seat in between the two girls. “He was what we like to call a Yikes.”

“He wasn’t that bad!” Matia defended herself, despite knowing that he was, in fact, a yikes, causing Byron to let out a giggle from the passenger seat.

“He celebrated your ‘week anniversaries’ with Shakespearean sonnets, doll. He was bad,” Archer said, smiling over at Byron like a lovesick puppy.

“And besides,” Byron said, stifling more giggles at the image of Matia’s ex, down on one knee, dramatically reading poetry in the middle of the chemistry block’s hallway, “You don’t even believe in him. How can this be a bad decision?”

“Because, Byron,” Matia huffed, taking a long sip from her energy drink and screwing the lid back on, “who knows who actually lives in these woods. I could walk into some crackhead or something. I mean, there’s a reason we’re not supposed to go in them – especially at,” at this, she paused, squinting her eyes at the clock on the dashboard, “1:13 in the morning.”

“Just admit you’re a coward and we can go home!” Nora giggled, leaning her head against the window behind her.

“I’m not a coward,” Matia said, mostly under her breath. Her friends knew she couldn’t resist a dare, didn’t like being seen as the scaredy-cat she’d grown up being, so of course they’d sprung this one on here. Now here she was, outside of the Black Forest, about to go hiking at a little past one in the morning, all to find the local legend, the Groβman. “Whatever, I’m going,” she said, handing her unfinished energy drink to Nora and throwing open her door. Climbing out of the car, she dug out her phone and shut the door, leaning down to look at her friends through the windows. “Just know that if I die, I hate you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bryon said, making a shooing motion towards the woods. “Now go find that cryptid.”

Sighing, she stood back up and made her way over to the entrance of the woods. Shaking her phone once, twice, Matia watched as the flashlight illuminated her surroundings. Glancing up at the sky above her, she took in the lightless night sky, the moon and stars hidden behind a thick layer of clouds.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

By the time Matia had been walking for thirty minutes, she’d already had to turn her flashlight back on twice. She hated the automatic timer on it but had no clue how to turn it off. It’d made her trip twice so far, once over her own feet and once over the roots of a tree that she would swear came out of nowhere had anyone seen her. She didn’t even really know what she was looking for. Sure, she knew the description of the creature - tall, white, wears a black suit, sometimes has tentacles sprouting out of its back – but that didn’t mean she knew how to track it. Or anything, for that matter. Her dad had only taken her hunting once, back when she was six, and he said she sucked so bad that she should go vegetarian.

The breaking of a tree branch rips her from her memories, something she’s thankful for - thinking of her father is never a pleasant pastime. Turning her head towards the noise, Matia stops walking, tilting her head slightly. She’s a long way away from the car now, far away from the perceived safety that the metal walls of Archer’s red Charger offered them. Still, she can’t help but be curious about who could be in the woods with her. Maybe, she thinks, one of her friends followed her.

“Hello?” she calls out, raising her phone’s light in the direction of the sound. “Is someone there?” Her questions were met with no answers, the only noise being that of the wind rustling through the thick foliage above her head and that of the creatures that lived in the woods. “Come on guys, I heard you!” she says a little louder, almost shouting in that direction, not even entirely sure where the noise came from. “If you wanted to come with me, all you had to do was ask,” she mutters, sighing and turning back the way she was going and readjusting her phone in her hand before she’s suddenly hit with a bright idea. Unlocking her phone, she squints at the sudden brightness before navigating to her messaging app and pulling up her conversation with Nora, the last message being nothing but a ‘be there in ten xoxo’ from Nora about 7 hours ago.

Quickly pulling up her contacts, she starts walking again as she scrolls through the numbers until she lands on Nora, the contact image of her holding up a peace sign and smiling at the camera, the bright red skin around her fresh tattoo evident to everyone. Hitting call, she puts it on speaker as she waits for her friend to answer. Not hearing her friend’s phone ring in the distance, she easily rules out one of them from following her.

“Yeah?” Nora answers, the sound of her hitting the middle console in between the front seats echoing off the trees as the sound from the radio quickly diminishes. “You giving up yet?”

Scoffing, Matia raises her phone a bit higher to see further in front of her. “No, I just want to know which one of you nerds followed me.”

“Followed you?” At this, Nora’s confusion is evident. “We’re all still in the car! What are you talking about?”

“Right, and I’m Kanye West.”

“No, seriously!” Nora says, the sound of her voice getting a bit fainter as, what Matia assumes, she pulls the phone away from her face and turns on speaker. Her suspicions are only confirmed when she hears the thud of the phone being placed down somewhere in the car and as Nora’s voice suddenly echoes more than before. “By’, say something!”

“Like what?” Matia hears Byron ask, obviously confused by the situation.

“What’s going on?” Archer’s question follows, making Matia stop in her tracks as what feels like ice floods her veins.

“Wait, you’re all in the car?”

“Yeah, I already told you that,” Nora says, sounding concerned for her friend. “What’s going on Mat?”

Quickly shaking off her flashlight and ducking against a tree, Matia takes the phone off of speaker and presses it to her ear. “I think someone’s out here with me, you guys.”

“Impossible,” she hears Byron respond. “It’s, like, 2 am!”

“I’m telling you guys,” Matia starts, turning to peer around the tree to see if anything was coming. “I heard something.”

“Something?” Archer asks, obvious skepticism in his voice.

“Like… I don’t know! A branch snapped – which, yeah, I know, could be an animal,” she starts before they can cut her off and call her paranoid, “but I swear I’m being-“ she cuts off, seeing a figure in the distance, easily 8 feet tall and darker than the night around it, all except for the white of its face, glaringly bright against the background of the forest. “Fuck,” she says, dropping her phone and immediately starting to run off in the direction she hopes she the car was in.

\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Running is all Matia knew for the next however long, constantly ducking and weaving around trees and stumbling over roots, no longer having her phone to guide her way through the mess that was nature. The creature chased her, somehow slow while still keeping up with her long strides, almost like an animal playing with its food, all the way to the edge of the woods. By the time she got there, her legs were burning and her lungs felt like they were on fire. She was sure she was screaming, her throat hurt so bad, but all she could hear was a ringing in her ears, louder than any noise she’d ever heard before in her life. Chancing a glance behind her once she saw the edge of the woods, the sight of glorious freedom and escape, she sees the creature had stopped, head tilted and staring at her like this was some kind of game, one that it had already decided she would not win.

As Matia stumbled out of the woods, she cursed at the sight in front of her. None of her friends were even in the car, all of them instead outside and standing around the vehicle, seemingly arguing about who would go to check on Matia. Seeing her running out of the woods, Archer nodded from his position leaned against the car, one foot propped up on the door behind him, his crossed arms holding a cigarette that was half gone.

“See a crackhead?” he jokes, nudging Nora and making no attempt to help Matia as she ran and trips over her own feet more times than she could count out of just pure terror. Nora turns from her position to the right of Archer to look at Matia with raised eyebrows and Byron just shrugs at his friend from Archer’s other side.

“Get in the car!” Matia shouts, trying to push herself further and faster. She was so close, so very close. If she could just make it, they could leave and they’d be safe. “Just get in the damn car!”

“Dude, what the fuck?” Archer asks, standing up when he realized he’d never seen his friend so terrified in his life, not even of her dad. Dropping his cigarette, he fumbles in his pockets for the keys to the car, barely managing to drag them out as Matia skids up to them, running around to her side of the car and crouching down behind the car.

“Archer Williams, if you don’t unlock this car right now, we are in some serious trouble,” Matia grits out through clenched teeth, barely loud enough to be heard. Heaving out a loud sigh as she heard the car unlock, standing up just the slightest bit to open the door and crawled into the car, making sure to keep her head down. “Now get in!”

Nora walked over the little bit of space to her door, pulling it open as Byron simply shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not really understanding what was going on. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says.

“Sure, let’s call him that,” Matia says, still not talking louder than a whisper. “Just get in the car before…” she trails off, not wanting to speak it into existence.

“Before what, Matia?” Archer asks after a few seconds of painful silence, still not opening his door to get in.

“And what do you mean ‘him’?” Byron asks, frowning at his friend’s weird behavior and not even bothering to move, still just standing beside Archer at the driver’s side door and switching his gaze between Matia and the forest.

“Him!” Matia shouts at her friends, frantically waving a hand at them, hoping they get that they need to get in the car. “The god damn… The Groβman!” At this, Archer stalls, his hand on his door’s handle and turns to look at the forest with Byron, seeming to ignore Matia’s terrified state of being. 

“He’s not… He’s not real, Matia,” Nora says, opening her door and leaning down to talk to Matia. “You’re supposed to be the skeptic of all of us, remember?”

“Well, I was wrong, you were right. He’s real and he’s taller than even Archer!” she says, gesturing towards their friend who stands at a solid 6 feet tall, towering over the rest of them. Turning back at his name, he gestures at Byron, telling him to get in. “And any second now,” Matia continues, “he’ll come out of those damn trees and kill us all. Now can we please just leave!”

“He’s not real, thou-” Nora starts, only to be cut off by the loud ringing noise again, the sound alone making Matia want to cry. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s him, you idiot! I already told you that!” Matia shouts, huddling down as far as she can get in the seat.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Archer says, wincing himself at the loud noise. Ignoring him, Matia leans her head a bit to the right to look around Nora, only to see the creature slowly emerging from the woods, coming towards them slowly, tentacles creeping from its back.

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!” she says, backing up against her door. They’re dead, she knows it. All four of them, dead and gone, at the ripe old age of 18. As her back hit the door, the others turned around just in time to see the creature, its tentacles shooting out towards them and grabbing Nora and Archer by the ankles, Byron by the neck, and dragging them backwards into the woods.

Screaming, she should be screaming, the others are, that she knows. Instead, she clamps her mouth shut and lurches forward to slam Nora’s door shut, not knowing how to help herself or her friends. Crouching back against the passenger side door, Matia watches in horror as her friends are dragged off into the woods, kicking and screaming. She sits like this, curled up on herself, not moving or speaking, until dawn, long after the screams have faded. She half expects the creature to come back for her - she wants it to, honestly – but it doesn’t. It lets her sit, wallowing in her own guilt, until a horde of mysterious black vans pull up next to the car, people in suits with a strange symbol on their chest hopping out of the vehicles. Clearly this was bigger than some legend.


End file.
